Portuguese words from Spanish
40 Portuguese words with Spanish in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
albino
It is borrowed from Spanish albino, a derivative of albo (“white”), according to Houaiss, Corominas and Caldas Aulete; the Spanish word is from Latin albus (“white”). Corominas writes that the…
anchova
It is borrowed from Spanish anchova, the older Spanish form of anchoa. Houaiss and Corominas take the Spanish word from Catalan anxova (anxove 1383, amploya 1317), and that from Ligurian anciôa, the…
artesão
1. The word for the craftsman is borrowed from Italian artigiano, according to Houaiss, Wiktionary, Aurélio and Nascentes. Houaiss compares French artisan. Machado derives it from the French word…
aturdir
Its origin is disputed. For Houaiss, Wiktionary and Aurélio it is borrowed from Spanish aturdir (“to stun”), which Corominas derives from tordo (“thrush”), a bird said to gorge itself on grapes and…
balança
It is borrowed from Spanish balanza (“balance, scales”), from Vulgar Latin *bilancia, derived from Late Latin bilanx (“having two scale-pans”). Machado takes the Spanish origin as proved by the ⟨l⟩…
bandurra
It is borrowed from Spanish bandurria, from Late Latin pandurium, from Latin pandūra, from Ancient Greek πανδοῦρα (pandoûra, “a three-stringed instrument”). Cunha takes the Late Latin word from a…
bobo
It is usually explained as borrowed from Spanish bobo (“fool, simpleton”), from Latin balbus (“stammering”). Gonçalves Viana argued for the Spanish origin in his Apostilas: a native outcome of the…
brilhar
It is borrowed from Spanish brillar, from Italian brillare (“to sparkle”), in the view of Houaiss, Cunha and Aurélio; Wiktionary and the dictionary of the Lisbon Academy take it straight from the…
cânhamo
It is borrowed from Spanish cáñamo, recorded in Spanish since 1170. The Spanish word comes from Late Latin cannabum, the form Isidore uses, beside classical cannabis (“hemp”). In Spanish the Latin b…
canhão
It is borrowed from Spanish cañón, which in turn comes from Italian cannone, according to Houaiss and Cunha. Houaiss dates the Italian word to the 14th century as “thick tube” and to 1514–1520 as…
despojar
It is borrowed from Spanish despojar, from Latin dēspoliō (“to plunder, strip”). Corominas also says that Portuguese took the verb from Castilian, where it is recorded from 1215, and that the old…
escolta
It is borrowed from Spanish escolta (“escort”), from Italian scorta (“guidance, escort”). Houaiss calls the Spanish route probable and Cunha takes it through Spanish, which has the word from about…
esteira
1. The word for the mat is probably borrowed from Spanish estera, from Latin storea (“a mat of rushes or rope”) (also written storia). The Meyer-Lübke dictionary also derives the Portuguese form…
faisão
It is borrowed from Spanish faisán, which itself came from Old Occitan faisan. Houaiss names the source as Provençal or Old Catalan faisan and thinks the word probably reached Portuguese through…
fanfarrão
It is borrowed from Spanish fanfarrón (“braggart”), first recorded in Portuguese in 1573. Figueiredo and Silva Bastos derived it from fanfarra, but that noun, from French, is recorded only from…
frente
It is borrowed from Spanish frente, from older Old Spanish fruente, recorded in 1124, from Latin frōns (“forehead, brow; front”). Silva Bastos and Figueiredo derived it from the Old Spanish form. In…
furacão
It is borrowed from Spanish huracán, a word of the Taíno of the Antilles, from Taíno hurakán. Wiktionary writes the Taíno form as *hurakā. The Spanish word is first recorded as furacan in Peter…
garra
Its origin is disputed. Corominas holds that it is borrowed from Spanish garra: the sense “claw” is native only to Castile, and spread into Portuguese from the south, where the older words for a paw…
gozar
Houaiss forms it from Portuguese gozo + -ar, and notes that Machado and Nascentes allow for the influence of Spanish gozar. Nascentes and Aurélio take the verb straight from Spanish, and Wiktionary…
lancha
It is borrowed from Malay lancharan (“swift, light”), first recorded as lanchara. Dalgado reports that Yule took the source to be lanchar (“quick, swift”) followed by a word for “boat”, and that…
lerdo
It is probably borrowed from Spanish lerdo (“slow, dull”), as Houaiss, Wiktionary, the DLP and the Porto dictionary take it. Cunha and Nascentes call it of obscure or doubtful origin. The Spanish…
machete
It is borrowed from Spanish machete, a word first recorded in Spanish in a document of 1550. Corominas takes it for a derivative of macho (“large hammer for forging iron”), so that its first sense…
mangue
Its origin is disputed. Houaiss, Wiktionary and the DLP connect it with borrowed from Spanish mangle, a word of tropical America, which Houaiss calls Carib, from Taíno. Corominas considers the…
olvidar
According to Houaiss, Cunha and the DLP it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *oblītō (“to forget”), formed on oblītus, the past participle of oblīvīscor (“to forget”). Cunha gives the older Old…
painel
It is most probably borrowed from Spanish painel, a variant of panel, as Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes and Aurélio hold. Houaiss traces the Spanish word to the dialectal French paniel, panel (recorded…
papaia
It is borrowed from Spanish papaya, recorded in Spanish from 1535, in Fernández de Oviedo. The Spanish word comes from a native language of the coast of the Caribbean Sea: Cunha calls it Cariban…
penha
It is borrowed from Spanish peña (“rock, crag”), recorded in Spanish from 945. It displaced the inherited Old Galician-Portuguese pena, which survives as Galician pena. The Spanish word is from…
pepino
Its origin is disputed. Houaiss and Cunha explain it from an old word for “melon”, *pepom, which was taken for an augmentative and given the diminutive suffix -ino. Most other sources consider it…
pólvora
It is borrowed from Spanish pólvora (“gunpowder”), which goes back to Catalan pólvora (“dust, powder”). The Catalan word continues Late Latin pulvera, a neuter plural formed on Latin pulvis…
punhal
Its origin is disputed. Machado, as Houaiss reports, thought it most probably borrowed from Spanish puñal, although he also allowed a native formation. Wiktionary, Priberam, the DLP and Porto…
quiçá
Houaiss and Cunha explain it as borrowed from Spanish quizá (“perhaps”), recorded in Spanish from the 13th century, a reduction of Old Spanish quiçab (c. 1140) and quiçabe, which are alterations of…
refrão
It is borrowed from Spanish refrán (“refrain; proverb”), which is from Old Occitan refranh (“refrain”). The Occitan noun comes from refránher (“to restrain; to modulate”), from fránher (“to break”)…
regalia
It is borrowed from Spanish regalía (“right belonging to the king; privilege”), as Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes, Aurélio and Wiktionary all derive it. The Spanish word is a learned formation that…
ria
Houaiss takes it borrowed from Spanish ría (“arm of a river, river mouth”), which he dates to 1495 and explains as formed from río (“river”) with the feminine ending -a. The Aulete Digital also…
rumo
It is borrowed from Spanish rumbo, according to Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes and the Aurélio. Nascentes explains the loss of /b/ as an assimilation of the two labials. Wiktionary instead refers it to…
talão
It is borrowed from Spanish talón (“heel”) according to Houaiss, from Vulgar Latin *talo, a derivative of Latin tālus (“ankle; heel”). The REW also gives the Spanish word as the source of the…
til
1. The word for the tilde is borrowed from Spanish tilde, shortened, according to Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP. The Spanish word, recorded from 1433, is in Corominas's view a semi-popular doublet of…
tina
It is probably borrowed from Spanish tina, recorded in Spanish from 1159, from Latin tīna (“a vessel for bringing wine to the table”), as Houaiss explains it. Cunha also suggests that the Latin word…
tomate
It is borrowed from Spanish tomate, from Classical Nahuatl tomatl. Wiktionary notes that the Nahuatl word meant the tomatillo, and that the tomato proper was xītomatl. Friederici quotes Molina's…
xastre
It is borrowed from Spanish sastre (“tailor”). The Spanish word was itself taken from Catalan sastre, earlier sartre, from Latin sartor (“patcher, mender”), a derivative of sarciō (“to patch…